Coco Gauff is out to be a threat on grass as she warns that she is a different player from a year ago

Coco Gauff says that she has taken a great deal of confidence from avenging her Berlin Open loss to Ekaterina Alexandrova on her return to the grass courts of the Rot-Weiss Tennis Club.

Gauff needed to labour for her victory as she saved three set points in the opening frame before surging to 7-6(6), 6-2 win over Alexandrova.

Alexandrova tallied an emphatic 6-4, 6-0 win over Gauff at the same stage of the competition last year.

Gauff believes that her victory is a clear marker of the progress she has made over the last year.

“I’m a different player from last year. She’s a great player to play, especially on grass … so I knew it was going to be tough,” Gauff said after her win.

Alexandrova fought back from 4-2 down in the first set and would force it into a tiebreak.

Her first-strike tennis came good for her over first hour but the American would weather the storm well.

Gauff would double fault to put Alexandrova up 6-3 in the tiebreak, but she then denied the Russian any further points in the set.

Eventually a double fault from Alexandrova, a missed backhand flying wide, and a whiffed backhand return consumed the Russian’s set points and another double fault sealed the set for Gauff.

“When you’re down in those points in tiebreaks, I just tell myself just to get one, and then one point turns into two,” Gauff said. “I was just hoping she wouldn’t ace me on one of those points. I was just hoping I could get a ball in the court.”

Gauff was also named in the US tennis team for the Paris Olympics on the same day as her win in the Berlin round of 16.

Team USA confirm Paris Olympic games tennis lineup with Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz headlining

She believes that the surface transitions of the 2024 season, will be manageable although she believes it will be easier to switch back to clay after the grass swing, than it is to shift from clay to grass.

“I think for me the grass to clay will be an easier transition than clay to grass, which is what we’re used to,” she said at a press conference.

“Yeah, it’s going to be tough. But like she said, everybody is doing it, and you know it only happens once every four years. It’s just something you have to push through and you can think about your goals. The Olympics aren’t mandatory, so if you don’t want to play you don’t have to. I know we both want to play.

“So we’re going to try our best to deal with the circumstances we have.”